This invention relates generally to improvements in methods and apparatus for forming three-dimensional objects from a fluid medium and, more particularly, to new and improved stereolithography system involving the application of enhanced data manipulation and lithographic techniques to production of three-dimensional objects, whereby such objects can be formed more rapidly, reliably, accurately and economically.
It is common practice in the production of plastic parts and the like to first design such a part and then painstakingly produce a prototype of the part, all involving considerable time, effort and expense. The design is then reviewed and, oftentimes, the laborious process is again and again repeated until the design has been optimized. After design optimatization, the next step is production. Most production plastic parts are injection molded. Since the design time and tooling costs are very high, plastic parts are usually only practical in high volume production. While other processes are available for the production of plastic parts, including direct machine work, vacuum-forming and direct forming, such methods are typically only cost effective for short run production, and the parts produced are usually inferior in quality to molded parts.
Very sophisticated techniques have been developed in the past for generating three-dimensional objects within a fluid medium which is selectively cured by beams of radiation brought to selective focus at prescribed intersection points within the three-dimensional volume of the fluid medium. Typical of such three-dimensional systems are those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,041,476; 4,078,229; 4,238,840 and 4,288,861. All of these systems rely upon the buildup of synergistic energization at selected points deep within the fluid volume, to the exclusion of all other points in the fluid volume. Unfortunately, however, such three-dimensional forming systems face a number of problems with regard to resolution and exposure control. The loss of radiation intensity and image forming resolution of the focused spots as the intersections move deeper into the fluid medium create rather obvious complex control situations. Absorption, diffusion, dispersion and diffraction all contribute to the difficulties of working deep within the fluid medium on an economical and reliable basis.
In recent years, "stereolithography" systems, such as those described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,330 entitled "Apparatus For Production Of Three-Dimensional Objects By Stereolithography" have come into use. Basically, stereolithography is a method for automatically building complex plastic parts by successively printing cross-sections of photopolymer (such as liquid plastic) on top of each other until all of the thin layers are joined together to form a whole part. With this technology, the parts are literally grown in a vat of liquid plastic. This method of fabrication is extremely powerful for quickly reducing design ideas to physical form and for making prototypes.
Photocurable polymers change from liquid to solid in the presence of light and their photospeed with ultraviolet light is fast enough to make them practical model building materials. The material that is not polymerized when a part is made is still usable and remains in the vat as successive parts are made. An ultraviolet laser generates a small intense spot of UV. This spot is moved across the liquid surface with a galvanometer mirror X-Y scanner. The scanner is driven by computer generated vectors or the like. Precise complex patterns can be rapidly produced with this technique.
The laser scanner, the photopolymer vat and the elevator, along with a controlling computer, combine together to form a stereolithography apparatus, referred to as "SLA". An SLA is programmed to automatically make a plastic part by drawing one cross section at a time, and building it up layer by layer.
Stereolithography represents an unprecedented way to quickly make complex or simple parts without tooling. Since this technology depends on using a computer to generate its cross sectional patterns, there is a natural data link to CAD/CAM. However, such systems have encountered difficulties relating to shrinkage, curl and other distortions, as well as resolution, accuracy and difficulties in producing certain object shapes.
Supports are shown in the figures in U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,330, and these supports attach the object to the platform.
The original type of posts/supports used were actually formed by curing single points. These points were cured for specific lengths of time to give appropriate cure depths, with a corresponding cure width. This type of post is limited by its strength, and the associated cure time required to achieve this strength level (if possible to obtain the desired strength).
Another type of post/support structure is based on the need to increase the adhesion strength between layers. The adhesion strength is proportional to area of contact between layers. When curing a point the cure width quickly reaches a limit where additional cure width is unpractical; therefore, another method of increasing contact area was implemented. Instead of curing supports that are point vectors in cross-section this next phase uses supports that are polygons in cross-section. These polygons can be triangles, rectangles, octagons, etc. These structures give us much greater contact area between layers (much greater adhesion strength), along with much greater structural strength against horizontal translation. These supports worked reasonably well but they still encountered some difficulties in that: (1) they were hard to remove from the object, (2) they offered support to only a limited number of object vectors, and (3) this type of support structure required the use of a base to support the polygons to insure attachment of the perforated platform.
Hence, there continues to be a long existing need in the design and production arts for the capability of rapidly and reliably moving from the design stage to the prototype stage and to ultimate production, particularly moving directly from the computer designs for such plastic parts to virtually immediate prototypes and the facility for large scale production on an economical and automatic basis.
Accordingly, those concerned with the development and production of three-dimensional plastic objects and the like have long recognized the desirability for further improvement in more rapid, reliable, economical and automatic means which would facilitate quickly moving from a design stage to the prototype stage and to production, while avoiding the support problems of the previous three-dimensional production systems. The present invention clearly fulfills all of these needs.